Have you signed up for The Educator’s Room Daily Newsletter? Click here and support independent journalism! Welcome to our brand new advice column! Over the years we’ve received a wide range of questions from fellow educators. So we decided to ask some of our writers to respond. Today we’re helping a teacher who feels like […]
grading
Posted inPedagogy
Why I Stopped Using Writing Rubrics
Have you signed up for The Educator’s Room Daily Newsletter? Click here and support independent journalism! In my English and writing courses, I always love to share the following Anne Lamott quote with students: “…writing needs to breathe and move.” To further expand on this quote, I explain that writing cannot be constricted in a […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
A Seventeen-Year Veteran Teacher’s Regrets: The Grade Game
In the many years I’ve been teaching, I’ve often wished that I could just have a group of students who smilingly followed my every instruction. But beyond instruction, one of my biggest goals as a teacher was to get my students to think for themselves. However, it was difficult to reflect that goal in my grading […]
Posted inAsk a Teacher, Instruction & Curriculum, Instructional Strategies
Stop Grading Everything! On Grading What Matters
What should teachers include in their grade book? Coming from several school cultures where there is a category for everything and almost everything is graded, I notice a recurring theme. Students who typically do well continue to do so, but the students who struggle rarely find success. The fact that homework, classwork, quizzes, and tests […]
Posted inFeatured, Instruction & Curriculum, Middle School, Opinion
Thoughts on Grading Part 1: To Give or Not to Give a Zero
A couple of weeks ago, I went to a district meeting, and we discussed grading, which is a sensitive subject. While we all grade differently, teach different ways and teach different grade levels (6th-12th), there is one element we all agree on- secondary students are not turning assignments in when they are due. I cannot […]
Posted inFeatured, Opinion
Thoughts You Had While Grading…
“I just can’t wait to go home and grade papers!” Not. Grading isn’t my favorite thing to do when I get home, but I just cannot seem to get any grading done during my prep period, so sadly, it all comes home. I really do not grade for hours during the week, but on Sundays […]
Posted inClassroom Management, High School, How to Fix Education, Middle School, Opinion
The Student Deserving of an "A" (and Other Grading Policies)
When I was in an interview for the job at the school where I now work, one of the questions they asked me was what I thought about the importance of grades. My answer? Grades are merely a tool. They don’t always represent the heart of a child, or the effort that was put forth or where […]
Posted inClassroom Management, From the Front Lines
6 Ways to Not Take Work Home To Your Family!
If someone told me 11 years ago that I could still be a teacher and not take home any papers to grade, lesson plans to write, or parents to call, I would never have believed them. How can teachers not take any work home? That’s part of the unwritten portions of a teacher contract of […]